Integral Education: The CIIS Blog

Walking and Meditation

By ALLISON RENNIE

This post was written as an assignment for professor Cindy Shearer’s WRC 7087: Writing as Art. This course exposes students to varieties of work in text and image from illustrated books and blogs and visual journals to graphic novels and memoir and art books—while also asking them to create their own illustrated work, postcards and text/image art and journal.

Walking and meditation are two practices which restore my sense of integrity and help me rest in my own skin again after thrashing about in the world. So given the opportunity to write a manifesto about "something I know" for my Writing as Art class, I chose walking meditation. After writing, the second part of the assignment was to develop a visual companion for the manifesto in the form of a box. The plain white box needed to enter into conversation with the text of my manifesto.

In 2010 I walked the ancient pilgrimage in Spain called the Camino de Santiago. The Camino is a network of walking paths which terminate at the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela in the northwest corner of Spain. This was a profound experience for me, and one that continues to influence my life today. I chose a few photographic images from the pilgrimage and placed these on the outside of my small box (6” x 6” x 3”). The images are not intended to tell the story of the Camino, but rather remind me personally of the learning from the month long walk.

The inside of the box became for me a space to hold simple prompts to support my ongoing practice of walking meditation. I made a small notebook to take out walking; an invitation to gratitude; a tiny box to hold treasures like a soft brown round pebble and a tiny red maple leaf. And this inner space is a quiet container for my manifesto.

I made a simple leather-bound book of text and image.

The pages of the book are 100% recycled agricultural fibre.  The cover is a soft blue leather. It is bound with bookbinding thread, and finished with cream linen book cloth on the inside covers.

I used stamps, photos, hand lettering as well as computer generated print.

The process of construction and the final book reflect the nature of walking practice. 

It took time to make. 

Loom in Essence

By GERARDO MEDINA

This post was written as an assignment for professor Cindy Shearer’s WRC 7087: Writing as Art. This course exposes students to varieties of work in text and image from illustrated books and blogs and visual journals to graphic novels and memoir and art books—while also asking them to create their own illustrated work, postcards and text/image art and journal.

 In one of my lighter moods, I was contemplating this scarf I made years ago. I really liked it and I’ve just been waiting to give it to the right person. It’s made with a very long cast on and knit lengthwise instead of by its width like most scarves. It is knitted together in garter stitch using bits of yarn that I had left over from various projects and from yarn that had been gifted to me. Most of the pieces were not enough to make a full scarf on their own, but when mixed together, they did a great job. The mix of yarns is made of natural fibers, human-made fibers, novelty yarns and unassuming yarns.

Scarf made of mixed fibers.

When I think of it as a whole, I see this as a metaphor for living. Most people are not made from a single fiber. We are made up of experiences: gifts and different textures from the people in our lives. Further, when we look back on our own personal tapestries, we see the flaws, but this happens when we focus and fixate on what’s “wrong” in our histories. Yet, as we take a step back and see the fabric as a whole, the flaws diminish and we can see the beauty that is our lives.

Following this path, or skein of free thought, I can see so much of life in other knitting patterns. In knitting stockinette, the knitter knits in one direction and then upon turning the work, purls on the way back. This creates a tight v-like pattern on the “right side”. The interesting thing about this pattern is that the knitter can do the pattern correctly. However, when laid out, the ends curl on each other and the yarn is lost in itself because there is no room for it to breathe.

Reasoning the MFA

By CINDY SHEARER, professor and program chair, MFA in Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts and MFA in Writing and Consciousness

In 1978 in London, I had a tan mid-length suede coat, chocolate brown Frye boots, a large leather handbag and daily practice of poetry. I lived in Highbury in North Islington in a basement flat with a small twin bed, a weak shower, and darkness all times of day. I often walked from Euston station to the Reading Room of the British Library on Great Russell Street, rather than take the Tube to Tottenham Court Road, so I could stroll Bloomsbury. Walking Virginia Woolf’s neighborhood was an experience of art for me.

British Museum Reading Room

I carried my notebook everywhere and wormed my way into a mentorship with Elliott Coleman, who’d founded and then directed the Writing Seminars at John Hopkins. Retired, a bit lost, afraid of death after a recent stroke, Elliott shared stories of writers and writing and lessons about visual art, Proust, opera, BBC radio, and the newly installed Pope—John Paul II. Elliott showed me art practice meant paying attention to every detail in the physical landscape and mind’s eye—and absorbing oneself in art.

In London, art was everywhere I was—at the market stalls in Covent Garden or Notting Hill Gate, in Foyles, the ICA, RADA (so many museums, bookstores, galleries!), the West End and Fringe theaters, the rock and classical musicians in the Tube stations, the jazz at Ronnie Scott’s, and part of the pub lunches and take-out dinners I had with artists in my creative writing program.

I immersed myself in art, absorbing it through my skin into my bloodstream—so it could travel through my heart.

Art was in what I read, saw, experienced, touched, related to—every art and all arts were a teacher to me. I didn’t focus on a skill or develop a technique. I took in everything. I learned specifically and generally, within a genre and discipline, and beyond discipline, across discipline and in relationship to everything.

Taking Charge of Your Education

By MARIKA O'BAIRE-KARK, student in the Writing and Consciousness MFA program
 
You are in charge of your education. As your knowledge, intelligence, and understanding evolve, then perhaps wisdom can focus and accelerate your advance into becoming the person you wish to become. You are going to create a future anyway out of the unknown that lies ahead. You could be well aware and do this deliberately or not. You decide.

Kris Brandenburger, a poet and professor at CIIS, introduced me to Tobin Hart, an educator. He wrote a philosophy in his book, "From Information to Transformation: Education for the Evolution of Consciousness." I created an algorithm from his work in parallel with that of Patricia Benner, from her work, "Expertise in Nursing Practice: Caring, Clinical Judgment and Ethics"; Stuart Dreyfus, an applied mathematician, and Hubert Dreyfus, a philosopher wrote about how air force pilots, chess players, and army tank drivers acquired their skills. Benner and Dreyfus and Dreyfus collaborated on the second chapter of her book, about how nurses, who are artists and scientists, acquire their skills. I write here about their viewpoints in relation to writers. This may seem complex. And why do it?

Writers initially work alone, or perhaps in the company of others but not with others. However, in the journey of their work, they learn from everyone and everything around them. Once they produce their piece, writers and other artists often seek supportive observers to respond to their work. Doctors, nurses find that from the beginning of their professional life in becoming educated they must learn to work as a team, even though as healers they find their actual presence with someone experiencing illness, may often be solo. It is a creation in the moment. The medium is the space between them. This demands great skill.

Artists and writers use similar skills of observation—listening, watching, feeling, then intuiting what action must come next and originating it. How does one learn a high level of skill? Or would someone want to stop at the level of being competent to perform certain physical tasks? If an individual knew how to deliberately develop his or her own skill, I believe most individuals would want to go for excellence, for the extraordinary. Here is a comparison of algorithms between Hart and Benner.

CIIS Celebrates Launch of Mission at Tenth Inter-arts Journal

CIIS celebrates the release of volume 3 of its inter-arts journal Mission at Tenth, the Double Helix issue, on Saturday, March 31. The event will be held in Namaste Hall at the CIIS Main Building from 6-7:30 pm. The event is free and open to the public.

Mission at Tenth is produced by students in the MFA programs of the Writing, Consciousness and Creative Inquiry Department. Volume 3 features work by poets Jane Hirshfield and Pireeni Sundaralingam; "Action Architect" and MacArthur genius Elizabeth Streb; Exploratorium "Vision" prize winner Meeson Pae Yang; and "Robopocalypse" author Daniel H. Wilson. The "double helix" theme was suggested in an MFA talk last year by adventure writer Julia Whitty. Asked by a student to reveal the source of inspiration for her work, Whitty answered that she found it in "the deep scatter of science and art."

The event will include a panel of contributors: photographer Barbara Parmet, videographer Zig Gron, muralist/performance artist Johanna Poethig, and science writer, co-author of "How to Defeat Your Own Clone," Terry D. Johnson. Panelists will be interviewed by MFA students in the Editing and Publishing class, and introduced by magazine editor Randall Babtkis. Neil Freese, art director of the journal, will offer a short how-to on the QR codes featured in Mission at Tenth. Panelists will also take questions from the audience.

The first volume of Mission at Tenth, the Leaky Pen issue, was published in spring 2009; the Hieroglyph Issue followed in spring 2011, featuring work by Angelica Muro, Alonzo King, Vicente Aleixandre, Rabindranath Tagore, Quincy Troupe, Diane Di Prima, and others. Volume 4, the East/West issue, is planned for a spring 2013 release and submissions will open on June 1, 2012. For more information, write to rbabtkis@ciis.edu.

On Catharsis and the Interdisciplinary Project: HOMELESS IN HOMELAND, Part 3

By SARIA IDANA, a theater, literary, and music artist, committed to freedom of expression as a means to develop action connection and intimacy. Her work focuses on personal and global struggle in conjunction with human resiliency. She is a Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA student.

Saria Idana will be performing her solo show HOMELESS IN HOMELAND on March 1-3 at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley, Calif.

Catharsis is present in HOMELSS IN HOMELAND in three ways. First, through a dramatic arc in both the theater piece and spoken word album; second, in what I have learned from the different art forms speaking to each other as they develop multiple layers of meaning; and third, in how I have been changed on a personal level by engaging with the topics. The combination of these allows the audience to experience their own catharsis. When an artist has been changed through the process of making work, the showing becomes a sharing not a telling. This manifests through intention and into stance and tone. The action of sharing gives the audience permission to engage with the material in a more intimate way.

Structurally, the main character—based on me—goes through mental and emotional breakdowns and breakthroughs, which is a traditional form for catharsis. This is a classic structure developed with Aristotelian theater in ancient Greece. This dramatic arc invites the audience to identify with the protagonist and to go through mental and emotional shifts as the protagonist does. On a personal level, engaging with this material has changed my relationship to my own identity both as an American and as a Jew dedicated to the human rights of all people.

From feedback I received, I know catharsis has occurred for a number of audience members; I consider even the political hate mail emailed to me evidence of this. In both formal and informal post performances discussions, audience members have expressed having altering. This has been demonstrated through intense crying—coupled with bits of laughter—to people saying, “I just never thought about it quite like that”;  “it” has been applied to different aspects of identity, history, and experience shown in the narrative of the play, but most often refers to the Middle East conflict.

On Catharsis and the Interdisciplinary Project: HOMELESS IN HOMELAND, Part 2

By SARIA IDANA, a theater, literary, and music artist, committed to freedom of expression as a means to develop action connection and intimacy. Her work focuses on personal and global struggle in conjunction with human resiliency. She is a Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA student.

Saria Idana will be performing her solo show HOMELESS IN HOMELAND on March 1-3 at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley, Calif.

Making the multi- and interdisciplinary body of work HOMELESS IN HOMELAND has been cathartic for me artistically; I have come to deeper articulation of how the different artistic forms relate to each other in process, production and performance. I have released some self-criticism and have more clearly define my multi- and interdisciplinary nature while better understanding how I relate to each form. Word, or poetry, is how I access thought, meaning, and message. Word is where I start; it defines the process which then is refined on the page, in performance or song. Acting is how I tell story and engage with compassion. It is where I can allow for multiple and strong perspectives to live. It is a way of remembering. Song is how I process and transform my own emotional experience. Soundscape is how I create a believable environment to draw myself and/or the audience deeper into the material.

Movement is how I feel, it is the articulation of the unnameable. It is how I understand and embody personal and cultural experience, emotional, and physical landscape. Movement styles are deeply connected to both personal and cultural identity. Most of the conversation of identity in the solo show is not accomplished through language but through gesture and seven forms of dance; modern, hip hop, Israeli folk dance, samba, salsa, flamenco, and dervish turning.

From an interdisciplinary perspective I have experienced how these forms are enhanced by each other, both through clear fusion and by having multiple forms developing material at the same time. This heightened awareness of the power of having multiple art forms in conversation is new for me and the focal point of my artistic catharsis. Before, I simply appreciated engaging in all these forms, and having many outlets at the same time, but the many outlets were often not related, and I did not fully believe that the forms could relate in such a deeply integrated way.

On Catharsis and the Interdisciplinary Project: HOMELESS IN HOMELAND, Part 1

By SARIA IDANA, a theater, literary, and music artist, committed to freedom of expression as a means to develop action connection and intimacy. Her work focuses on personal and global struggle in conjunction with human resiliency. She is a Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA student.

Saria Idana will be performing her solo show HOMELESS IN HOMELAND on March 1-3 at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley, Calif.

In a previous blog titled "A Recipe for Art that Moves," I discussed catharsis and my belief that it is a necessary ingredient for making affective art, “art that moves." Both mentors and colleagues asked me to articulate my relationship with catharsis in my own work. Without declaring myself “a good artist who makes art that moves," I will share how I have approached and experienced catharsis in my multidisciplinary body of work called HOMELESS IN HOMELAND and how it has affected audiences.

Catharsis is present in this body of work in three ways; firstly, for me personally; secondly, for me as an artist learning how my different art forms relate to each other; and thirdly, catharsis lives within the structure of the material. These three things together have allowed audience members to experience catharsis of their own. In this first blog I will discuss how I have been personal changed. In the second I will discuss my artistic discoveries and how I have been changed as an artist. In the last I will address the cathartic structure of the material and how audiences have been affected.

A brief reminder: Catharsis is commonly defined as a mental, emotional, or spiritual purification through an intense experience. In art this is achieved by giving audience members an engaged experience that offers new perspective. Often it is achieved by triggering an emotion either through memory or aesthetic context. Human beings’ relationship to catharsis is dynamic and ever changing, as Augusto Boal outlined in his book "Theater of the Oppressed." I have come to think of catharsis as an experience that changes or deepens one’s perspective.

Personally, I was changed through creating HOMELESS IN HOMELAND. I did not conceive of the project so much as I was compelled to write, move, and sing as a way to personally process after my first trip to Israel-Palestine in 2007. After a year I realized I was making an interdisciplinary body of work that eventually took form between 2009 and 2011. The material focuses on Jewish-American identity, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the human desire for a place of belonging, of home. It is comprised of a solo show, a manuscript of writings including the play script and related poems, and a spoken word album that will be released later this year. The material has taken many forms as a result of my multi-disciplined process, but also because I believe these themes are ripe and relevant for the times and wish to reach many different kinds of art going audiences.

Telling Stories Through Art

By CINDY SHEARER, professor and program chair, MFA in Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts and MFA in Writing and Consciousness

Account, anecdote, backstory, chronicle, drama, fable, fantasy, history, lie, legend, narrative, myth, memoir, parable, plot, romance, saga, serial, tale, thriller, witness, yarn: all describe how artists convey stories.

But as you walk through "Telling Stories Through Art," the exhibit Tricia Grame and I have curated for the Diablo Valley College Art Gallery, a different (and more eclectic) set of words, such as symbol, cardboard, color, wax, white gloves, found objects, dress form, texture, whimsy, wire mesh, humor, paper bag, might come to mind. Here the artists push against how stories are generally told—and convey them through a wide range of forms—and distinct, evocative uses of visual materials.

The exhibit is definitely “mixed media," suggesting it takes many visual materials and multiple ways of using them to fully convey a story (a story well told must be evoked in layers?). Included—among many other mixed media works—are Laura Towne’s illustrated poem on paper, April Zachary’s hand-made book, Tanya Wilkinson’s mixed media sculpture and mixed media 3D collage, Marsha Balian’s found wooden bird and metal bird cage sculpture, Sarah’s Loomis found wood, bottles, paper and thread assembled into visual stories, Tricia Grame’s paintings with text, Jenelle’s Campion’s work on cardboard, Mira M. White soft pastels/acrylics on paper, and Wendy Robushi’s oils, wax and repetitively etched words on wood panels. Nanci Price Scoular’s installation uses sand and water and Plexiglas to tell a story from beginning to end, from start to moment of change.

The exhibit is also evidence that artists and viewers create story together. Tanya Wilkinson writes: “When a piece of art works for you, it draws you in, it evokes feeling; you become a part of the story of the piece.” Wendy Robushi speaks to the “story not yet told”—art as a vehicle for unconscious story to become conscious. Several artists, such as Michelle Champlin, Mira M. White, and Tricia Grame, draw on symbols as a metaphor for story or as a way to share the influences that others’ stories have on them. Juan-Carlos Gonzalez and Aaron Rose collaborate—using the buffalo as catalyst for his painting and her handmade book.

Collaboration as Memorial

By NANCI PRICE SCOULAR, mixed media artist living in San Francisco. Nanci is a first year student in the Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA Program.

This post was written as an assignment for professor Cindy Shearer’s CIA 7091: MFA Interdisciplinary Arts Workshop. As part of a community of artists working across art perspectives, students in this course get the chance to teach each other about their art form(s), practice, lineage and influences, and are challenged to inquire into the interdisciplinary arts as well as forms new to them.

The idea of “collaborating” with the work of an artist no longer alive is intriguing to me for a number of reasons. Firstly, I could control the outcome. Secondly, I could use the original work as a springboard into my own creative process. Lastly, there could be a bonus—if the artist was well known enough, I might get “discovered” by association. I decided to test this idea.

To start I purchased a used copy of "Dark Light" (Lustrum Press 1973) by the photographer Michael Martone. It was not in good condition but met a number of my criteria: Martone was no longer alive and he was successful enough to get his work published. I was very drawn to his vulnerable and haunting black and white photographs. They would be the perfect inspiration for my creative process, plus the monochromatic images would be a strong yet neutral building block for my collage.

By way of structure, I challenged myself to find a story. What was Martone thinking about when he took the photographs? Assuming he had input into the sequence of the images, why did he put certain ones opposite one another? Why this collection as a whole? I had little guidance. My copy had no cover and the only clue was in Martone’s words in the preface: 
“It needed in the first instance 
a bright light to expose 
and a dark light to expose…”  

I inferred that the collection was about the role of contrast, how both the dark and the light are needed to reveal something. To me, that something was vulnerability. With that in mind, I looked at each double spread as a yin and yang, honoring the dark and the light both with the tonality of my collage elements and my content itself. The project is still in progress but here are some examples:

Through the process I discovered that collaborating with an artist no longer alive is something quite different to what I thought it would be. What began as an exercise in exclusive control over someone else’s work as the foundation for my own became a way of experiencing an artist whom I could never meet. I could not stop thinking about Michael Martone. What experiences shaped the vulnerable eye with which he composed his images? I could feel the intensity of his gaze as I worked on top of them. I felt the need to honor his intention, his message, instead of taking the work in a new direction. I felt him beside me in some form as I worked.